Listen to the Flower People

Did I mention that on Saturday people brought flowers to decorate on the Courthouse fencing? When we arrived that night we were treated to a beautiful display:

Flowers inserted into the holes in the fence spell out one letter per panel. In this photo we can see “K,” “F,” and “E”.

You can’t see it here (you couldn’t get a picture of the whole thing, it’s too big and it’s hard to even get this much without people in the way), but due to a pixelation accident, when all the flowers were inserted into their individual holes in the fencing, it looked exactly like the flowers spelled out

#FUCKFEDS!

I know! So weird! Much coincidence!

 

 

 

 

Sunday Night Protests: A wee spot of bother and a chaotic video

Much more to come later. Got home at 1;30 am and set some water heating for tea. Desperately needed to take a shower and get the tear gas off my skin.

It was a mostly safe night, though I got knocked down in a panic from a nearby flash-bang and several tear gas grenades/ canisters/ thingies going off at once. I honestly don’t know who knocked me down, but there were several people that bumped into me nearly simultaneously and one kicked one of my crutches out from under me. The other crutch went as soon as my weight was no longer directly over it and a different person bumped into the now-unstable crutch. I actually fell onto the backpack of someone in front of me and they slowed my fall (fortunately they also didn’t hit the ground). On the way down I got kneed in the left side, more or less. It was right next to the kidney right where my side meets my back. While on my knees I couldn’t gather my crutches and someone stepped on my heel. As my toes were pointed it couldn’t drive them into the ground, so I felt lucky not to break a toe. Almost immediately 3-4 generous people were helping to pick me up. I think one of them was the person who stepped on my heel, but I don’t really know for sure.

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Desperate for some Tear Gas Video? I have you covered!

Man, tonight was just lots and lots of tear gas. They did so many small gassings, many of which were down the block from me and hardly affected me at all. The more I experience tear gas from even a small distance away, the more I realize that how incredibly fucked up I was on Tuesday night was because I was clearly sucking in a super-heavy dose. On Tuesday I remember 3 tear gas canisters around me, all very close, none farther than 5 meters away for sure, and I don’t think any of them were even 3 meters, but I was in shock from the flash bang, so I’m saying less than 5 meters just to be safe. But here’s the thing, I had my eyes mostly closed after that until I was just over a block away, but when I would open them for a moment to try to plan a safe path to walk with my eyes closed, I was still in a fog of tear gas for a good 3/4 of the way through the park. I had previously reported that they had kept the tear gas close to the courthouse on Tuesday night’s 1st offensive, but tonight I was upwind of the tear gas and could remain longer and watch more closely. The tear gas from a single canister just isn’t that dense 30 feet/ 8-9 meters away from the canister. It’s a very, very light mist . except sometimes when the wind moves the cloud more or less intact. It’s still only maybe a 3 meter diameter of intense smoke, but sometimes that 3 meter bunch moves more-or-less intact on the wind instead of being stretched and thinned.

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What do you need to know about the Portland protests?

Obviously I have Opinions™ on what needs to be said about the protests in Portland. I think they’re important and I couldn’t have come to that conclusion without thinking that certain specific things about the protests were important.

But honestly, these protests aren’t important at all unless they’re communicating something to people. Now, just photos of tear gas can inform us about the state of authoritarianism in US government, but there’s so much more to say, especially since general authoritarianism doesn’t tell us anything about the original goals of the movement: ending racism and racist violence in policing.

So of course I’ll continue to report, but I want y’all to get the information that is most meaningful to you. I genuinely care about what you want to know.

So, if you were going to the Portland protests, what would you investigate? What would you be trying to learn? What would you be looking to see?

in short, what can I tell you that you aren’t getting anyplace else?

Most requested/upvoted will get the highest priority, but I’m really going to try to get people everything on the list, if it’s in my power to do so.

Some previous suggestions from Wonkette’s comments where I’ve also been posting about the protests:

  • Demographics, esp race.
  • How much of the crowd is college students? How active are they? What about the olds?
  • Any more co-opting by III% or Boogaloo Bungholes?
  • I want to know if you’re OK, if you move been hurt by the feds and/or police
  • if there’s anything we can do to help
  • Part of me just wants to know all the little anecdotes.
  • Another part of me wants to know what kinds of plans people are making to actually change things as we go forward – that includes holding the line on Trump et al invading cities like Portland, but more specifically, the issues around injustice and police brutality and ongoing systems on racism (sure, just a small basket of things, no trouble right?)
  • I would like to know how it feels to participate in the protests, to be there?

You can suggest something totally new, or use these ideas as a take-off point, or just comment to give your +1 to one or more of them without adding your own creations.

Reality Check: We can do better

So, I’m sure the people reading along have been wondering about my take on Ted Wheeler. This is part of it.

As we all know, the protests in Portland are important. They’re about Black lives. They’re organized with absolutely the best of intentions. So there couldn’t be any racism right there at the protests, right? Right????

Aw, fuck. You know the answer.

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The Story of July 21: Three offensives

You’ve likely already read the thread I posted about the personal experience of being exposed to tear gas, how your body responds, how your mind panics. But of course that doesn’t tell people much about what actually happened – the narrative that one might get in a newspaper. This post is more about that: the story of late July 21st and the earliest bit of July 22nd and the rally that happened in front of the Federal Services Building [Correction:] Justice Center and the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse in downtown Portland.

The nightly protests themselves are a sort of jamboree. There are people who take it upon themselves to be leaders. They speak and initiate chanting. But they’re mostly limited to use of bullhorns, which simply aren’t loud enough to reach the whole crowd. So if you don’t work your way to the front, it takes you several rounds of a chant before you can pick it up – except the obvious and most frequent chant, “Black Lives Matter”. That one gets started a lot.

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The chaos of tear gas

Okay, folks.

This is 2:42 seconds of a critical time in last night’s protests, taken around 11:30pm Pacific time on the night of July 21st in front of the Hatfield courthouse. My BFF and I are in the front rank, the only people in front of us are a couple of press people who walk briefly in front of us. You won’t see it, but about halfway through someone with a shield comes up and kneels in front of me to protect me (though I didn’t want it or ask for it). I didn’t tell the shield carrier to buzz off and find someone who actually wanted protection, but if this is ever you, please ask permission before you actually touch someone’s body. My shield carrier actually grabbed my arthritic knees in what they thought was a reassuring gesture just before the tear gas was fired. Don’t be that person, okay? Okay.

Now the video:

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